Lance's Predicament

Comments (7)

Andrew Vontz

2010-08-05 09:42:15

Hey Steve- I’m a journalist who grew up in Kansas City, long time fan of your career. I wrote the piece I’m pasting below for FoxSports.com in 2007, thought I would share. As more facts come out, it’s clear that the large scale doping practices in pro cycling required systemic cooperation and cover-up from everyone involved in the game–including the journalists who covered them. This piece was not very popular with my friends in the cycling media. I enjoy your blog, keep ’em coming! Andrew ARE NEW BOOKS STRAIGHT DOPE ABOUT ARMSTRONG, LANDIS? By Andrew Vontz With the start of the Tour de France just thirteen days away, proof of pervasive doping in professional cycling has irrevocably compromised the credibility of the event and of the sport itself. Three of the past five winners of the Tour de France have either been convicted of doping, or have admitted to doping to achieve their victories. Seven-time Tour winner Lance Armstrong has been accused of doping. 2006 Tour winner Floyd Landis currently awaits the outcome of the United States Anti-Doping Agency hearing on his positive test for synthetic testosterone, a banned substance, during his ‘06 Tour victory. While Armstrong and Landis maintain they have never used doping products, critics persist in claiming both doped to achieve their victories. On Tuesday, two books about doping in professional cycling will hit bookstore shelves. From Lance to Landis: Inside the American Doping Controversy at the Tour de France by David Walsh, chief sports writer of the Sunday Times of London, chronicles alleged systematic doping on American pro cycling teams that raced in Europe, including accusations that Armstrong doped. In Positively False: The Real Story of How I Won the Tour de France by Floyd Landis with Loren Mooney, the associate executive editor of Rodale’s Bicycling magazine (full disclosure: this reporter has written for Bicycling), Landis again states that he rode clean at the ‘06 Tour and that he has never used doping products. Last week, Armstrong and Landis came out swinging to discredit those who criticize their victories. Are Landis and Armstrong dopers? Or are they the victims of hateful hacks hellbent on making big bucks from falsely accusing American heroes of doping? 1 DOES CYCLING HAVE A DOPING PROBLEM? On Friday in an interview with USA Today, Landis proclaimed his innocence, attacked his accusers and stated that, “There is no culture of doping in cycling.” To better understand the accusations against Armstrong and Landis, it may be helpful to examine the body of reporting, literature, and doping admissions that have accumulated during the past two decades. In 1990, former pro cyclist turned journalist Paul Kimmage published Rough Ride, a memoir that described pervasive doping in European pro cycling and Kimmage’s own use of performance-enhancing drugs. In 1999, Willy Voet published Breaking the Chain, a tell-all about pervasive doping in professional cycling, including the events that led to Voet being thrown in jail after he was caught transporting massive quantities of performance-enhancing drugs prior to the 1998 Tour for his employer, the Festina pro cycling team. In recent months, 1997 Tour winner Jan Ullrich was banned from the sport for doping, current CSC team director Bjarne Riis admitted he used doping products during his 1996 Tour victory, and 2006 Giro d’Italia winner Ivan Basso was banned from the sport after copping to attempted use of doping products prior to the ‘06 Tour. Before his suspension, Basso rode for the Discovery Channel team. Five of Armstrong’s former teammates tested positive for doping or have admitted to using doping products while teammates with Armstrong. 1998 Tour winner Marco Pantani was busted for doping during the 1999 Tour of Italy and died of a cocaine overdose in 2004. With the exception of Kimmage, all of the riders named above vehemently denied all charges against them until they admitted to doping or were conclusively proven to have doped. 2 WHAT DOES ARMSTRONG SAY? In Daniel Coyle’s book Lance Armstrong’s War, Armstrong made his opinion of Walsh abundantly clear when he said, “Walsh is a fucking scumbag. He’s a liar. His angle is that he hates me, and I hate him.” (p. 204). Armstrong made these comments in response to allegations that he doped in L.A. Confidentiel: Les Secrets de Lance Armstrong, a book that Walsh published in 2004 in France. When Fox Sports contacted Walsh regarding From Lance to Landis, he confirmed that the book contains accusations that Armstrong doped. Last week, Armstrong responded to the accusations in Walsh’s book with a statement that read in part: “We proved in court that Walsh and his sources have no credibility. . .He violated fundamental principles by paying his sources for ‘information’. . .I am sick and tired of those who try to profit off the tactics of smear and guilt by innuendo or association.” As a seven-time Tour champion who never tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs, Armstrong’s anger is understandable. Further, his press release raises important questions about the manner in which the public receives information that informs their opinions about athletes accused of doping. Armstrong has repeatedly cited the outcome of his lawsuit against the insurance company SCA regarding a contract dispute between the two parties as proof that he did not dope. Sworn statements given for the suit included the depositions of Armstrong’s former teammate Frankie Andreu and his wife Betsy who were subpoenaed for the case. The Andreu’s both stated that as they sat in a hospital room with Armstrong during his battle with cancer, they heard Armstrong tell a doctor that he had used EPO, growth hormones, cortisone, steroids, and testosterone—all doping products—while competing as a professional cyclist. Armstrong and SCA settled the case out of court and Armstrong received a $7.5 million settlement. “There was no ruling. It went to the settlement and that was it,” says Jeffrey Dorough, SCA’s corporate counsel. Armstrong did not respond to an interview request from Fox Sports. “We received no money (sic) no financial benefit from the Walsh book at all,” Betsy Andreu wrote to Fox Sports in an email. Further, she wrote, “I’d like to say I don’t care about him. I wish he would leave me and Frankie alone and stop with the character assassination. I deem it important to defend my character which he is trying to impugn. I don’t have a PR firm to do it for me.” Armstrong has also publicly criticized Greg LeMond. Fox Sports contacted LeMond and asked if he had profited from the Armstrong controversy. LeMond says, “It’s cost me a tremendous amount of money for making some very benign remarks about being disappointed that he was seeing Dr. (Michele) Ferrari,” a controversial Italian physician linked to doping that Armstrong worked with closely during his career. 3 WHAT DOES LANDIS SAY? Falsely Positive is written in the first person in the voice of Landis and begins in part by saying, “I have nothing to hide. . .There’s nothing to hold back. I don’t feel the need to be selective in order to create some image of a person who isn’t me.” Landis was the subject of a cover story in the June 2007 issue of Bicycling magazine, which hit newsstands about a week prior to the start of the arbitration hearing to determine whether Landis doped to win the ‘06 Tour. Bicycling describes itself as the “world’s leading bike magazine” and has an audited circulation of 400,000. The cover story, titled Floyd vs. the Man, reported on Landis, his defense team, his defense strategy, the evidence in the case, and the prosecution’s case, as Landis prepared for the arbitration hearing that would determine whether he would be suspended from professional cycling or get to keep his ‘06 Tour crown. The piece was written by Loren Mooney, the co-author of Falsely Positive. The piece ran without a disclosure that Mooney was the co-author of the forthcoming Landis book. The piece has also been published on Bicycling’s website without a disclosure that Mooney is Landis’ co-author. “There’s not necessarily anything wrong with her ghostwriting a book for the guy, but it’s better to tell the readers about it so they can have proper context for reading the story,” says Lance Williams, co-author of Game of Shadows, the expose of the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALC) doping scandal which implicated athletes such as Barry Bonds and Marian Jones. “She has his side of the story so she’s purporting to write it objectively and effectively she is literally compromised, immediately compromised because of her financial relationship with him,” says Kimmage. Mooney attended part of the Landis hearing and reported via blog about the proceedings for Bicycling’s website. There was no disclosure in the blog that Mooney was the co-author of Landis’ book. The day that Landis identified Mooney as his collaborator for Positively False at the hearing, the book was listed at #4 on the Amazon pre-sold sport’s title list. Mooney’s blog included reporting on what was perhaps the most dramatic day of the hearing when LeMond testified and revealed that Landis’ business manager Will Geoghegan had called LeMond and threatened to tell the world of the sexual abuse LeMond suffered as a child if he testified. Positively False includes information about the hearing including an account of the events leading to the Geoghegan phone call that differs from the version Landis gave in the hearings. The publication of Positively False violates a gag order placed on both Landis and USADA until a ruling has been issued on the case. When contacted directly and via Bicycling’s publicist, Mooney declined to comment on her coverage of Landis for Bicycling. Mooney responded to an interview request to discuss Positively False with an email that stated: “It’s Floyd’s story. He’s the one to elaborate on it.” Citing the gag order in the Landis case, USADA declined to comment on the Landis book when contacted by Fox Sports. SO WHAT IS THE STRAIGHT DOPE? The 2007 Tour will start July 7th, twelve days after the publication of Walsh’s From Lance to Landis and Landis and Mooney’s Positively False. With their publication, the debate about whether these past Tour winners doped will become more heated. The doping controversy in cycling will once again eclipse the actual racing at one of the world’s most challenging and important sporting events. Ultimately, sports fans can pick up either book and decide who to believe for themselves.

H Luce

2010-08-05 23:50:17

As for what Floyd did, it’s the most common thing in the world for criminals to do: rat out your buddies, turn State’s evidence, and get a lighter sentence. It doesn’t excuse what Floyd did, but at least there’s the possibility that it shed light on real problems in the sport. If cheating and fraud are this rampant, then pro cycling should be abolished and amateur cycling should be the only kind allowed. It’s the seemingly inevitable result of lots of money being put into a sport, the degradation of that sport by people in search of a payoff. Get rid of the money and compensation, and there’s no more incentive to cheat on this massive scale. If Lance goes down and a lot of other riders go down with him, that’ll be the end of US pro cycling anyway.

CurbDestroyer

2010-08-06 12:22:20

Maybe Lance is Clean, but on the face of it just look at it. Correct me if I’m wrong. He does the TdF two years and If I remember right DNF’s or he finishes in a position down the line. He gets cancer. Then comes back to beats the best in the world . . . The best in the world who are “Super Charged . . . by a sizable margin . . . pretty miraculious I say.

Paul Deninger

2010-08-06 19:21:07

Be it a good or bad thing for the sport, this is going to end badly for Lance now that it’s in the hands of the feds. I don’t have to respect him, but I can understand Landis’ motives. Lance is an international hero while Floyd has been marginalized and made into a pariah. They did the same shit except one got caught.

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2010-08-08 20:51:17

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Carl Sundquist

2010-08-08 23:43:36

@ H Luce: There is a big difference. Landis was not the subject of any investigation, criminal or otherwise, when he made his claims, so state’s evidence has no application to *his* situation. Other riders may be in a different situation.

Folding Bikes

2010-09-08 05:27:54

Thanks for such an insightful post. I have long been attempting to explain the exact same thing to my homies but I think it’s better if I just email them the link to this site instead!